Blogito ergo sum! Actually, as N.T. Wright averred, "'Amor, ergo sum:' I am loved, therefore I am." Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic deacon. This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."

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Thursday, November 17, 2011

"I am human and I need to be loved"

I am posting our Friday traditio the evening before because in liturgical time a new day starts at dusk, plus I will preserve more time in the morning for prayer. Like last week, I am reaching back to the '80s, except this time for The Smith's How Soon Is Now? Like a lot of The Smith's music, this is a song about the difficulty of connecting on a meaningful level. In short, it is about belonging without compromising one's self. .

The difficulty of connecting the way we yearn to connect with others was dealt with beautifully by the late John O'Donohue in his book, Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Yearning to Belong:

In post-modern culture there is a deep hunger to belong. An increasing majority of people feel isolated and marginalized. Experience is haunted by fragmentation. Many of the traditional shelters are in ruins. Society is losing the art of fostering community. Consumerism is now propelling life towards the lonely isolation of individualism. Technology pretends to unite us, yet more often than not all it delivers are simulated images. The “global village” has no roads or neighbors; it is a faceless limbo from which all individuality has been abstracted. Politics seems devoid of the imagination that calls forth vision and ideals; it is becoming ever more synonymous with the functionalism of economic pragmatism

We all seek, or at least say and often think we seek, authenticity both in ourselves and in others. We want to be ourselves, that is, who we are meant to be. In this quest we quickly recognize we have no self apart from others.

3 comments:

I was reading last night ... a book about the end times -- written by a Catholic priest... Book states we are not to be troubled by the state of affairs... the climax of events... Instead we are to know that this is all necessary to the second coming. Expect countries at war. Don't become drawn into political scandal... etc. Recognize it for what it is.A curious perspective, isn't it?

About Me

I am husband and Dad to six lovely children. I am also a Roman Catholic deacon of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. I married in 1993, became a Dad for the first time in 1994 and most recently in 2011 (quite a spread). I was was ordained in 2004. I am assigned to The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. I am a graduate of the University of Utah and the Institute in Pastoral Ministry at St. Mary's University of Minnesota.

Madeleine Delbrêl

"We fashion the immortal being we are through our choices. Through our choices we bring the man in us to the fullness of life or to the worst of human suffering. At the hour of his death each human being has become either a person who will live with God forever, or who will be without God forever" Madeleine Delbrêl

St. Paul

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:1-2)